Thursday, June 23, 2016

A few months ago, Douglas Scott, a property manager in Jacksonville, Fla., was taking large doses of narcotic drugs, or opioids, to deal with the pain of back and spine injuries from two recent car accidents.

The pills helped ease his pain, but they also caused him to withdraw from his wife, his two children and social life.

"Finally, my wife said, 'You do something about this or we're going to have to make some changes around here,'" said Mr. Scott, 43.

Today, Mr. Scott is no longer taking narcotics and feels better. Shortly after his wife's ultimatum, he entered a local clinic where patients are weaned off opioids and spend up to five weeks going through six hours of training each day in alternative pain management techniques such as physical therapy, relaxation exercises and behavior modification.

Mr. Scott's story highlights one patient's success. Yet it also underscores the difficulties that the Obama administration and public health officials face in reducing the widespread use of painkillers like OxyContin and Percocet. The use and abuse of the drugs has led to a national epidemic of overdose deaths, addiction and poor patient outcomes.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

More than half of patients who get a prescription for opioid painkillers have leftover pills and keep them to use later, a practice that could potentially exacerbate the United States' epidemic of painkiller addiction and overdoses.

Researchers reporting in JAMA Internal Medicine also found that nearly half of those surveyed reported receiving no information on how to safely store their medications to keep them from children who could accidentally ingest them or from someone looking to get high.

One in five respondents said they had shared their medication with another person, many saying they gave them to someone with pain. Nearly 14 percent said they were likely to share their prescription painkillers with a family member in the future and nearly 8 percent said they would share with a close friend.

"The fact that people are sharing their leftover prescription painkillers at such high rates is a big concern," says Colleen L. Barry, who directs Johns Hopkins University's Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy Research. "It's fine to give a friend a Tylenol if they're having pain, but it's not fine to give your OxyContin to someone without a prescription."

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Brenda Pitts sat stiffly in an emergency room cubicle, her face contorted by pain. An old shoulder injury was radiating fresh agony down to her elbow and up through her neck. She couldn't turn her head. Her right arm had fallen slack.

Fast relief was a pill away — Percocet, an opioid painkiller — but Dr. Alexis LaPietra did not want to prescribe it. The drug, she explained to Mrs. Pitts, 75, might make her constipated and foggy, and could be addictive. Would Mrs. Pitts be willing to try something different?

Then the doctor massaged Mrs. Pitts's neck, seeking the locus of a muscle spasm, apologizing as the patient groaned with raw, guttural ache and fear.

Within seconds, Mrs. Pitts blinked in surprise, her features relaxing, as if the doctor had sponged away her pain lines. She sat up, gingerly moving her head, then beamed and impulsively hugged the doctor, vigorously and with both arms.

Since Jan. 4, St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center's emergency department, one of the country's busiest, has been using opioids only as a last resort. For patients with common types of acute pain — migraines, kidney stones, sciatica, fractures — doctors first try alternative regimens that include nonnarcotic infusions and injections, ultrasound guided nerve blocks, laughing gas, even "energy healing" and a wandering harpist.

Scattered E.R.s around the country have been working to reduce opioids as a first-line treatment, but St. Joe's, as it is known locally, has taken the efforts to a new level.

"St. Joe's is on the leading edge," said Dr. Lewis S. Nelson, a professor of emergency medicine at New York University School of Medicine, who sat on a panel that recommended recent opioid guidelines for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "But that involved a commitment to changing their entire culture."

In doing so, St. Joe's is taking on a challenge that is even more daunting than teaching new protocols to 79 doctors and 150 nurses. It must shake loose a longstanding conviction that opioids are the fastest, most surefire response to pain, an attitude held tightly not only by emergency department personnel, but by patients, too.

Pain is the chief reason nearly 75 percent of patients seek emergency treatment. The E.R. waiting rooms and corridors of St. Joe's, where some 170,000 patients will be seen this year, are frequently pierced by high-pitched cries and anguished moans.